Archive for November, 2009

Yes, this tape actually exists somewhere. I clearly remember one night at 23 Hop in late November the holes in the DJ booth were completely covered up. The interior of the booth was glowing so I peeked in when the door opened and saw a video shoot in progress – filming The Booming System in action. I asked someone what was going on inside and learned it was a project by some film students. It wasn’t until around 1995 that I asked about it again, the event was then confirmed by the Exodus crew during our interview with them. However, I never got a straight answer as to who shot it or the whereabouts of the tape and the lack of specifics has continued in recent communications.

After exhausting every possible lead I even tried contacted Ryerson Alumni to see if I could track down the students who shot the footage. No luck. They may not even be from Ryerson, that was just an assumption – could be Sheridan or elsewhere. If anyone stumbles across this and can provide any assistance please contact us.

There was also an amateur hand held footage taken at Exodus that I viewed in 1992 at X-Static. It was pretty rough and hard to make out, but it could be the only footage in existence. We’ve been in contact with the person who shot it and he’s optimistic about still having it somewhere, but has no clue where to begin looking.

12/03/2010 – After receiving the comment (below) we were tipped off that the footage might have been used in an indie Toronto documentary called Digital Dance Nation. I was at Suspect video an hour later and looked through their music documentary section. The VHS wasn’t there, however, it did appear on their system as being rented four years ago by the gentleman who commented below. Other than that they had absolutely no information about what happened to the tape – it has mysteriously vanished. But at least we now have a name. If you are in possession of this tape or happen to be one of the people involved in producing it please contact us.

We’re now offering a $200 reward for a copy of this tape on VHS.

07/17/2014 – Ahhhh time flies. We never gave up hope of finding Digital Dance Nation, but we ran out of leads. We knew at some point it would surface – this post is the first hit when the title of the film is Googled. Big thanks to DJ Marc Houle, who found this in the closet of his parent’s house…

He was also nice enough to have the tape converted and declined the reward. This is an awesome little flick, lots of cool cameos – an epic flashback.

It is however not the Exodus footage from 1991 described above. That hunt continues…

November 30th, 1991. Respect the cassette tape, the original music sharing medium. 60 minute, 90 minute, metal or chrome. So versatile it was also used to store data with computer tape drives. You could even immortalize your recording by punching out the little plastic tabs on the top. But their ability to retain decent playback quality 18 years after they were dubbed, priceless. Where would this project be without them? Oh, this is the last flyer Malik X would appear on until New Years Eve.

Here’s part three of the legendary, “Clash of the Techno” Radio London CKLN show. Malik and the other three members of the Booming System Collective had 25 minutes of air time to showcase their tracks.

Malik X takes over following Sean L‘s set. His stand-out mic work is definitely the best amongst our entire collection. He puts a great lyrical remix on the famous, “what’s on your mind” chant and a few of his other famous lines are spoken eloquently. And because of his familiarity with the non-mixing friendly broadcast decks at CKLN he’s the only member who manages any mixes. Need I say more?

Here’s part two of the legendary, “Clash of the Techno” Radio London show. The four members of the Booming System Collective were given roughly 25 minutes of air time to showcase their vinyl.

Sean L takes over the 1’s and 2’s after Dr. No. Sean never delved as deep in to the rough stuff as the Doctor, usually his tracks were more bleeps and less beats-per-minute. He wasn’t afraid of ambiance and the odd lovely vocal while everyone else was looking for more X’s on their hardcore. His mic work is super entertaining, abstract and nonsensical at times, but that’s what makes it so cool. He sends a shout-out to his co-workers, “out there on the bridge, in the cold, nice one boys” furthering our hunch that he worked at a toll booth.

At the end of Sean’s set Malik announces an event titled, “The Rave Under the Bridge” taking place on Saturday November 16th with DJs Mark D & Laza N. We also get to hear a couple of very interesting old CKLN ads. The first is for an unrelated event on Sunday November 3rd at the legendary Great Hall. The second ad is for event that takes place over two days: November 2nd and 3rd. These dates indicate this was show was most likely recorded on Saturday October 26th, hours before Exodus’ Such a Feeling event.

November 23rd, 1991. Unfortunately we only have the front of this flyer which was scanned from the third issue of The Communic8r. We do know that DJ line-up still consisted of the four members of the Booming System Collective. If you have this flyer or any others we may have missed along the way, please contact us.

A portion of this photo essay appears in the Winter 2018 edition of Spacing, available now on newsstands and at the Spacing Store (401 Richmond St W) In 1984, when I was commissioned to do documentary photography for an exhibition entitled “Spadina Avenue: A Photohistory”, the avenue still had t...

I sat in these chairs the day after my wedding with my new wife and my brother wondering what the fuck I was doing there. Lol

5 - 1 week 2 days ago

Typical Toronto Queen&John behavior to skip out on a deal with a broke ass John who only wanted 50 bucks while organizers charged kids ridiculous prices. If he only had more balls and brain cells he could have asked for $500. But than some organizers would have had him hurt.

1 week 2 days ago

Cool! I never did go in there, but saw years worth of people coming out of there sketchy as fuck many Sunday afternoons

Here's the final portion of the legendary, "Clash of the Techno" Radio London CKLN show. The four members of the Booming System Collective had roughly 25 minutes of air time to showcase their choons. Mark Oliver takes over following Malik's set. Shuggy comes in cool and "collective" to calm things d...